


We'll Learn The Words And Get It Right

by JacknessofHearts



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Relationship Talk, talking in metaphors, that is not the best communication style but well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28341909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacknessofHearts/pseuds/JacknessofHearts
Summary: Kankuro looks from Gaara to Lee and back. Gaara decides to ignore him for now, taking those last few steps down the hall, past their coat rack and over Temari's running shoes.“Hi!” Lee says, and if smiles could be measured, Lee's would run on for miles and miles.Gaara’s heart is ready to leap at that. A smile he hasn’t seen like this inmonths, and wasn’t supposed to see for weeks to come.“Oh,” Kankuro drawls behind him. “ThatLee.”*Lee visits Gaara at his house for the first time and Gaara realizes he's afraid to watch him leave.
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee
Comments: 11
Kudos: 77





	We'll Learn The Words And Get It Right

**Author's Note:**

> This was more of an exercise in how I can turn a fluffy, romantic concept into... not that. And by "exercise" I mean this story ran away from me and I just sat and watched/typed. I also edited like two side-plots out of this.
> 
> The italicized parts are excerpts from the in-universe book Gaara is writing.
> 
> Tell me if I need to tag for more, I really have no idea!
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> *
> 
> Title from "Not The End" by McFly

_Larkspur had trained to become the worst witch of her generation. You see, it's not easy, being a witch. True witchcraft, of the most green and most evil type, is not a simple talent, even if you come from a long line of the most villainous witches. It's something to be studied and practiced until every curse and spell rolls off of your tongue._

_Being haunted by a boy in a top hat kind of threw a wrench in her plans._

_(From “The Witch Heart”, p. 5)_

~*~

When the doorbell rings, Gaara is much too occupied with researching poisonous plants and trying to find a way to fix the plot hole his editor had pointed out in her last e-mail, so he calls for Kankuro to get his ass off the couch and open the door. It should've been his first warning sign of his evening plans screeching to a sudden halt, really, because he can hear Kankuro's dramatically annoyed groaning all the way up in his office.

Kankuro’s in a mood. It never bodes well for anyone.

“Hello,” Gaara can hear him at the front door a moment later, voice sickly sweet in that same way it gets when he threatens Temari with bodily harm when she wakes him up by singing in the shower again. “What can I do for you this lovely evening?”

“Oh, hi!” the person at the door says. “You must be Kankuro! Wonderful to meet you!”

To his credit, there’s a hallway and a staircase between Gaara and the front door. And he's been holed up in his office for hours now, his brain becoming more and more like a mud pit of jumbled words and run-on sentences. So, if asked, he'll say that's why he doesn't immediately recognize the voice.

“Yes,” Kankuro says, “and you are…? Or, more importantly, actually: What do you want? It’s eight in the fucking evening and you don’t really look like someone selling anything worthwhile to be honest.”

“I’m here to meet Gaara,” the other person says.

Gaara's half-way through his notes on belladonna when he realizes. He drops his fountain pen, ink splattering over the pages in an uncomfortably hectic attempt to stand up and run at the same time, his thoughts stumbling in a way he doesn't recognize in himself, somewhere along the lines of _What is he doing here?_ and _How do I look?_ Which is ridiculous, of course, because Lee's here to _see him_ , and he's never cared how Gaara looks. Not even when he's been working three days straight without showering or sleeping or coming out of his office for more than a bathroom break.

 _Breathe_ , he wants to think to himself, just as he hears, “I'm Lee!”

Right. Yes.

Lee.

Somehow Gaara manages to catch his breath and not fall down the stairs on his way down.

Kankuro's standing in his line of sight at the door, an imposing shadow if Gaara hadn't known that he's still wearing his pyjama pants with little cartoon cats printed on them.

He must've heard Gaara coming down the stairs because he turns around and frowns at him.

“You know this guy?”

And there he is. Just. Right there, on his front porch, wearing a thick winter coat and a knitted, orange hat that clashes with the colour on his cheeks, red from the cold outside. It's almost colourful enough to distract from the rest of him, too.

Almost.

Gaara's much more interested in Lee's smile.

“Um,” is the only thing he manages to get out. A strange, jittery calm settles over him, his heartbeat fast but steady, and he wants to reach out so badly his fingers curl into a fist. But maybe it's all a dream. He _has_ dreamt of this before.

Kankuro looks from Gaara to Lee and back. Gaara decides to ignore him for now, taking those last few steps down the hall, past their coat rack and over Temari's running shoes.

“Hi!” Lee says, and if smiles could be measured, Lee's would run on for miles and miles.

Gaara’s heart is ready to leap at that. A smile he hasn’t seen like this in _months_ , and wasn’t supposed to see for weeks to come.

“Oh,” Kankuro drawls behind him. “ _That_ Lee.”

For a long moment, nothing happens. Gaara's sure he’s supposed to do something, he’s just forgotten what that could be, especially when he has the option to just stand there, gobsmacked, his head spinning with Lee so close he can touch him.

He can _touch him_. Because he’s _here_.

“What—,” Gaara starts, and to his horror, his voice gets caught somewhere in his throat. He can _hear_ Kankuro grinning at the back of his head. “What are you doing here?”

Kankuro snorts but it's just more white noise in the back of Gaara's head. He ignores him, Lee evidently doing the same.

“There’s a competition in town.”

“I thought you were still in physical therapy.”

“I am.” Something wistful worms its way onto Lee's face, dampening the happy shine in his eyes for a second before it vanishes again, pushed down by his enthusiasm. “It’s Neji’s competition. I came along for moral support.”

“Neji needs moral support?” From every interaction Gaara and Lee’s best friend have had so far, he doubts that.

“Of course!” Lee boasts, his grin a shining, blinding thing illuminating their front porch like the northern lights. “Everyone needs moral support! And Neji’s really been in a slump for a while now, he’ll appreciate a good motivational speech before the fight.”

Gaara already has a reply on his lips, when Kankuro lays a hand on his shoulder. It’s the first time Gaara breaks eye contact with Lee, having almost forgotten Kankuro was there at all.

“As much as I enjoy this conversation,” and, horrifyingly, he sounds like he’s enjoying it too much, judging by the way his grin widens gleefully like it only does when he’s about to tell the latest workplace gossip, “how about you continue inside? With a closed front door?”

Everything happens a bit hectically after that, Gaara scrambling to invite Lee in, Lee scrambling to take off his coat and scarf and shoes. There's a thin layer of sweat glistening on his neck and he brings a travel bag with him. Gaara doesn't know what to concentrate on, so he looks away from both, heartbeat loud in his ears.

Kankuro closes the door, effectively shutting out the cold winter wind Gaara hadn’t even realized blowing through the hallway.

Lee keeps talking the whole time.

“Of course, it didn’t hurt that the competition takes place here,” he says, following Gaara into the living room. “When I heard about it, I immediately thought this is my chance. Since I’ve never visited before, and you’re always traveling so far to see me, and we haven’t seen each other in a while. So, I thought it’d be a nice surprise.” He’s looked around the room attentively until now, his dark eyes drifting over pictures on the wall, over the reality show still on TV, over Kankuro’s tools on the coffee table beside some weird looking puppet he probably wasn't allowed to take out of his workshop at the museum.

Suddenly, Lee shifts towards Gaara again, thick brows furrowed in something between hope and insecurity, his face exactly the same it was yesterday during their video call, and completely different at the same time.

Gaara thinks something, something grand and _dangerous_ , right then and there, so overwhelmed with seeing Lee stand between all of his furniture like he belongs right there with it that the words almost tumble out of him.

“Is it? A nice surprise?”

And that’s when Gaara realizes, he hasn’t even said ‘hello’ yet.

~*~

_“You shouldn't have done that,” Ghost said and floated right through Larkspur._

_She really hated when he did that. It felt a lot like being locked out of the house in the pouring rain._

_“I do not care,” Larkspur said because she didn't. She only wanted this terribly annoying, terribly dead boy to be gone as soon as possible. If she had to steal and poison and curse a few people along the way, all the better._

_(From “The Witch Heart”, p. 76)_

~*~

Has Lee grown since the last time he saw him? Maybe it’s because they’ve only seen each other through computer and phone screens for weeks, maybe Gaara’s brain has warped his image of Lee into something much smaller than he actually is.

Lee can fill up rooms with his presence. He’d forgotten that, forgotten how loud his laugh can be, how much he moves when he talks, how wide his smile gets when he’s sitting directly in front of Gaara.

In person. With only a table between them.

They’re eating dinner, Lee, Kankuro, and Gaara, seated at the big dinner table that’s only used for special occasions. Like New Year’s Eve. Or Temari’s engagement party.

Normally, they’d eat at the small kitchen table with the burn marks where Kankuro had knocked over a candle once. Or on the couch where they sometimes have to fish out one of Temari’s bras from between the cushions because she’d left it there when crashing after twenty-four hours of a particular harrowing shift at the fire station.

And for the last few days, well, Gaara's been in a writing frenzy, touching food only when Kankuro had put it directly on top of his notebooks.

Tonight, however, Gaara had put a plate filled with rice, and chicken, and vegetables, into Lee’s hand, and when Lee had drifted towards the dinner table immediately, Gaara hadn’t stopped him.

Kankuro had looked at him, though, brows arching high on his forehead, but he doesn’t comment, and Gaara’s grateful. He really is.

It’s a bit too much. All of it. The dinner table, Lee laughing during one of Kankuro’s stories from work, the light from the lamp above their heads casting soft shadows over Lee’s face, Lee’s lips curling around his fork, Lee’s fingers around his glass, Lee…

Lee.

 _He’s here_ , Gaara realizes over and over again, the reality of the situation only slowly sinking in, even though he can't stop thinking it. _Here, here, here._ Lee’s here, in his house, where Gaara can still see the mess Kankuro has left on the couch behind him, knows that it’s Lee’s chair creaking when he moves because no one has ever bothered to fix that, is transfixed by the way Lee's mouth closes around a fork Gaara knows is a bit bent.

It’s all a bit much. It’s all a bit too real.

They haven’t seen each other in almost _two months_.

“… and it took the curators over a week until they noticed what position we’d put the puppets in,” Kankuro says, his face red from all the wine, leaning back in his chair.

“How did they find out?” Lee asks, eyes gleaming, transfixed. He’s clearly enjoying the story, much more than Gaara who’s heard it at least four times already.

“So, we have these guided tours for children…”

Gaara knows where the story is going, so he doesn’t feel too bad for zoning out. He’s always thought that Kankuro would’ve been the better professional story teller, being much more charismatic than Gaara could ever hope to be, and professing a talent for keeping his audience on the edge of their seat.

He sees it with Lee, now, the way he hangs onto Kankuro’s lips, laughs out loud in all the right places, asks questions where Kankuro makes an obvious pause to invite them.

Or, maybe Kankuro isn’t that great a story teller. Maybe Lee’s just that good a listener.

As he laughs, Lee’s eyes flicker towards Gaara, big and shining and so close, so _wonderfully, heart-stoppingly close_ , and his fingers shift around his cutlery like he’s itching to reach out. It’s only for a second, though, then his attention is back on Kankuro, but he couldn’t have been clearer.

 _I’m here_ , this one glance says, better than it could’ve been said out loud.

Yes, it’s a lot, it’s too much, but it’s also _Lee_.

~*~

_“But I'm a witch,” she complained._

_Her aunt pinched her nose like she did every time Larkspur messed up a potion. “Haven't you learned anything, niece? We're wicked witches. Everything we do is rotten. Creating an undead creature, sure, I can teach you that. But getting a soul to move on? That's business for good witches.”_

_Larkspur had feared something like that._

_(From “The Witch Heart”, p. 119)_

~*~

“When is Neji's competition?” Gaara asks as they're cleaning away their dishes. He's glad to have something to do with his hands as he has to hold himself back from touching.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Lee says, handing Gaara another plate to put in the dishwasher.

Kankuro, who hates cleaning more than he hates anything else, has not-so-mysteriously disappeared to probably work with some tiny tools on some incomprehensible puppet mechanism again. So, it's only Lee and Gaara in Gaara's kitchen, tinged in familiar, warm kitchen lights, and familiar, warm kitchen smells mingling with Lee's warmth. If not with his familiarity.

“How long are you staying, then,” Gaara continues, trying to ignore his rapidly beating heart and Lee's everything.

It's like he's afraid that if he looks up from putting plates into the dishwasher, Lee will have vanished. If he doesn't look up, he can almost pretend they're on a phone call, miles and miles away from each other, Lee's voice in his ear a steady presence.

“I have to leave on Sunday.” Lee pauses, and what Gaara can see of him out of the corner of his eye seems to tense up all of a sudden. “If that's alright with you, of course. I don't want to impose, if you have plans…” His voice drifts off, slowly.

 _Sunday_ , Gaara thinks, trying to imagine spending two days with Lee and coming up short. They've spent such a long time apart that it's hard to think of their relationship differently, now.

“Sunday,” he says, and nods. “Okay.”

When he looks up, Lee's still there.

He almost says something, then, he feels the words crawl up from the center of his chest and has to push them down. This is not the place, this is not the time for grandiose gestures, for words he has trouble even thinking to come spilling out of him. They're still standing in Gaara's kind-of-messy kitchen, Lee's grasping a dirty pan in his hands, and Kankuro's calling from the living room.

“We still on for movie night or do you two want to be alone?”

“Movie night?” Lee lifts his eyebrows.

“We're watching movies Temari hates when she's working all night,” Gaara explains. He hesitates. Maybe Lee doesn't want to watch a movie with Gaara and his brother, maybe he he wants to be with _Gaara_. Only with Gaara.

“They're really bad, though,” he says, swallowing past his nerves of being alone with Lee. Because he wants that as well. He wants that so much… “We don't have to…”

“Oh, no!” Lee exclaims, his eyes growing wide. “I don't want you to change anything because of me!”

Or not.

Gaara's heart sinks.

That's how they end up on different ends of the couch, where at least two other people could fit between them. Kankuro's still sitting on the floor, though, fiddling with a puppet, and frowning at Gaara in a way that's probably supposed to tell him something.

They're watching some obscure, badly dubbed French romantic comedy, and Temari likely has good reasons for hating this movie but Gaara doesn't care. Tonight, he has better things to look at anyway. He has _Lee_ to look at, plus his own intentions.

There are reasons why they haven't seen each other in months. At least, Gaara's had his reasons but Lee works almost as much as he does. He wonders how Lee managed to get the time to come, even with Neji's competition coming up.

Gaara looks at Lee out of the corner of his eye, his heart pitter-pattering against his ribs every time Lee laughs.

 _Sunday_ , he thinks. They have until Sunday.

Just the thought of letting him, of letting _this_ go again, makes him press further into his corner of the couch.

At some point, when the credits are already rolling, and Kankuro has kind of dozed off on the carpet, Gaara glances at Lee to find Lee's eyes already looking back at him. Gaara blinks, and there's this almost surreal moment when Lee's smile is soft and tender like he hasn't realized he's been caught staring yet. The warm living room light reflects off of Lee's hair, making it shine, making Gaara itch to have it run between his fingers.

He doesn't reach out, though, and it's over in the blink of an eye.

Lee flinches, a strong, pink blush colouring the tips of his ears.

“Ah, excuse me,” Lee mumbles. “It's rude to stare.”

But he doesn't stop doing it. And that smile, that _smile_ that's so bright it could've been plucked right out of the sky still hangs there in the corners of his mouth.

There are those words again, right at the tip of Gaara's tongue, feather-light and still so heavy when he swallows them down. They fall back into his chest like bricks.

“What are you doing here?” Gaara can't help but ask, again. He doesn't want to feel as tired as he does but there's apprehension crawling all over him, all over the space between them, crowding into Gaara's darkest fears.

Maybe Lee _doesn't_ want to spend time alone with him. Maybe Lee doesn't want to be with him at all anymore, maybe…

The red on Lee's ears spreads to his cheeks.

“We haven't seen each other in a while,” Lee says, quietly.

“We had to work,” Gaara says, almost automatically, because this is what he tells people when they ask about his long-distance relationship. It's amazing, frankly, how many people will ask him incredibly annoying questions when they realize Lee lives on the other side of the country.

_How do you do that?_

_Wow, that must be so hard._

_Why aren't you meeting more often?_

_Why aren't you moving?_

_I could never live like that._

But then, this is Lee, and why would he give him an answer like this. Lee knows best what their relationship is like.

“Yes,” Lee says. Something in his voice sounds off, suddenly, tilted like he's angling away from him. “Yes, we did.”

Gaara looks away.

“I'm sorry about last month,” he says. It's the only thing he can think of. “I did want to come. I had forgotten about the event that weekend.”

“Yes. You told me,” Lee says, softly. “And I understand. I don't blame you. But it's still been a while since we've seen each other. I just. I mi—”

On the floor, Kankuro flinches, waking up with a loud snort. “Is it over?”

“It is,” Lee answers. “You missed the ending.”

“I really don't think I did,” Kankuro yawns. He stretches his arms above his head, making his joints _pop_.

Gaara stands up. There's a weight in his legs, in his stomach, like his lower body is made out of bricks he painstakingly has to move bit by bit by bit just to take a single step. “I'm going upstairs,” he says, and then does just that.

~*~

_“I'm turning into a good witch,” she said, and shivered. A thousand sun beams seemed to crawl up her arms at the thought, horribly warm and comfortable._

_“How absolutely marvelous!” Ghost laughed and tried to clap her on the back._

_His hand moved through her, of course, but for the shortest, tiniest moment, Larkspur could've sworn she'd felt something poke at her stone-cold heart, a spark just sharp enough to brighten the darkness. But that wasn't possible, was it?_

_Only boring, annoying good witches had warm hearts made of flesh, easily torn apart or squished. Wicked witches had stone-cold hearts beating in their chests. It gave them the power to cast the most vicious of spells and the vilest of curses without even batting an eye or losing a part of their soul._

_(From “The Witch Heart”, p. 195)_

~*~

Gaara's office is the smallest room in the house, even smaller than Shikamaru's rarely used office/room he sleeps in when he's supposed to be doing the laundry. He likes it, though, the way he feels boxed in by four walls, one of which is covered in bookshelves from floor to ceiling, another has all of his notes stuck to a huge whiteboard like he's a detective on a TV show.

“Is this what your brain looks like on the inside?” Kankuro had asked, once, when Gaara had been so close to not meeting a deadline for his publisher, he could feel it breathing down his neck. The whiteboard had been in utter disarray since he'd decided to scratch a whole side-plot at the last minute.

Gaara had stopped, then, and considered. He doesn't think of himself as a chaotic person, quite the opposite, actually, but sometimes, apparently, something whirls through him, shaking him up, shaking him loose, thoughts and plans and ideas spilling out of him so fast no ink or paper can hold it in.

“Not usually,” he'd replied.

He hadn't slept in five days, at that point. Maybe that was part of the reason as well.

Over the years, he's gotten better at managing the sleepless nights, the deadlines, the chaos. He works better when everything is organized, when every pen has its place on his desk. It helps his stories gain form, helps them _become_. Become something more than a mess of ideas in his mind, become something more than himself.

It helps _him_ become, too.

But he chose this room because of the window. He can look over their garden from here, can see Temari's rose bushes blooming in the summer, the two trees Shikamaru has hung a hammock between, the sun light reflecting off the water in the bird bath. He likes being surrounded by nature, keeps potted plants on his window sill and on his bookshelves.

Plants are like stories. He likes to help them grow.

Even in winter and even in darkness, there's always something to look at. Mist curling around the trees, snowflakes hurrying past his window, shadows shifting at the edge of their property.

It's the best room in the house, in that way, and he likes to come here, even when he's not working. Just to calm his racing thoughts, because there's order here. He knows the position of every paper clip, he knows how much light and water his succulents need, and he can outline a chapter just by looking at the notes on his whiteboard, can fall into the worlds he creates in the blink of an eye.

His siblings call it _hiding away_ , sometimes, and maybe they're right.

Gaara doesn't _want_ to hide from Lee.

For a few minutes, he sits down on his chair, staring at his manuscript. He even takes up his pen, seriously considering to just start working for a few hours, until his mind has quieted enough for him to catch two or three hours of sleep.

There's a big scene coming up, the grand revelation of what's happening to Larkspur's stone-cold heart. Usually, Gaara talks about these important turning points, with his editor, with people he's met online, with Kankuro or Temari or Lee.

This scene, though. He's been putting it off for a while now, writing around it in a way his editor has frowned at repeatedly.

This scene, it sticks with him. It feels personal, like something picked out of the darkest parts of his brain. Gaara's not sure he wants to put it into words yet, neither out loud nor written down.

Inevitably, he thinks about other words again. It's almost a list in his head, titled _Things I want to say to Lee_. There's too much on it already but with every word he adds he just wants to forget about it entirely.

So. He'd rather work on that scene in his book.

A soft knock at the door makes him look up.

Lee’s leaning against the door frame to Gaara’s office, arms crossed in that way that makes his shirt stretch over his biceps and Gaara's mouth run dry.

Gaara can only glance at him, warmth pooling in his stomach. Looking at Lee has had this effect on him from the very beginning, grounding, tethering him to reality, reminding him of cold days spent reading his favourite book, hot chocolate, low lights, Temari and Kankuro bickering in the background.

So, it doesn’t really come as a surprise, how this feeling seems tenfold when Lee is actually standing right there, right at the edge of Gaara’s refuge. Something inside Gaara blooms at the sight, wrapping his lungs in longing so strong he can hardly stand it.

“Are you mad?” Lee asks, voice timid. He’s hovering in the doorway like he’s afraid of Gaara kicking him out.

Maybe he has good reason for that. Gaara can’t look at him for more than two seconds at a time, afraid of what might come out of his mouth if he’s drawn into Lee’s orbit, if he lets all these thoughts growing inside of him bloom on the outside.

“No,” Gaara says. Because what else can he say?

“Okay,” Lee replies, sounding so uncharacteristically insecure.

Gaara stares at the half-written page in front of him, his own writing staring back in tidy, tiny letters. The black ink reminds him of Lee’s hair.

“I should’ve called. I’m sorry. I just thought—” He takes a shaking breath that could easily be confused for laughter. “I wanted to be romantic. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Gaara says, tries to put weight into the words. Why can’t he just look at Lee? Why is he so afraid of looking at him?

“Okay,” Lee says, again. Not sounding like he’s okay. Then, he breathes in, deeply. “I can still go to a hotel.”

With a jolt, Gaara turns to him, not only his head but his whole body needing to face Lee with an urgency he’s not sure either of them expected. “No!”

Lee blinks. His smile is slow to come, spreading spreading spreading, until his face shines again, all his insecurities bleached out like a loved, well-worn shirt that’s been hung up in the sun to dry.

And this is it, Gaara realizes, his mouth suddenly full of words he doesn’t dare to say out loud. This is his magnetic pole, his compass. A smile so bright he can orient his heart to it. It’s overwhelming, how clear the path in front of him seems to be when Lee looks at him like that, so much clearer than anything Gaara has ever dealt with before.

 _Where’s the catch?_ he thinks, because he needs to think it. Because nothing has ever been easy for him. Nothing but this. So. Where’s the catch.

“No?” Lee echoes. Finally, he takes one step over the threshold, his feet on Gaara’s hallowed ground. “You’re not mad, then?”

“I said I’m not mad.” Gaara’s heart tugs at him to meet Lee half way, so naturally, he forces himself to sit still, to wait until Lee is standing in front of his chair, close enough for Gaara to smell him, all of him, stale train ride smell and the freshness of his aftershave and the warmth of the dinner Gaara cooked for him, and all of it.

“Yes, you said that.” Lee’s fingers twitch. “Sometimes I’m not sure, though.”

“Why?”

“I wasn't sure, after last time... after you canceled.”

Gaara reaches out, fists one hand in Lee’s shirt, tugs at the soft fabric until Lee bends down.

“I never want you gone,” he admits because he can’t admit to the other thing, not yet, so this has to be enough.

Lee presses his soft, bright smile against Gaara’s lips.

~*~

_“I've never had a friend before,” Larkspur frowned. “Witches don't have friends. We have family. And familiars.”_

_“I never had a friend either,” Ghost said._

_What a sad thought, to die without ever having had a friend._

_“Well, then,” she heard herself say, the words tumbling out of her mouth with the ferocity of a stumble-spell. “Let's be friends!”_

_Larkspur watched as Ghost's pale, lifeless smile seemed to grow and grow and grow, like dandelions when she left her herb garden unattended for too long._

_(From “The Witch Heart”, p. 250)_

~*~

They kiss for a long time, Lee having climbed into Gaara's lap on the chair, the sharp angles of his desk digging into his side. Lee frames Gaara's head with his large, warm hands, and decks every inch of his face in soft, soft kisses.

Gaara remembers the last time they did this, with the roles reversed, at the table in Lee's kitchen, sunlight filtering in through the blinds in bright stripes. He remembers the summer heat crawling up his back, a stark contrast to the frosty night now, but it's the same kind of want building in his chest, the same kind of sigh drawn out of his throat by a string of Lee's kisses.

After a long time that doesn't feel that long, Lee leans back, his hands threaded into Gaara's hair. Something in his eyes makes Gaara's heart ache for that late summer day, for Lee's breathless moans in his ear, for the sweaty skin right by his hairline, for his hands reaching under Gaara's shirt.

It's a weird feeling, wanting to relive this past moment when Lee's right in front of him.

He remembers getting into the train at the end of his visit, too, remembers Lee's hand pressed against the dusty train window before waving one last time as they left the station.

Gaara frowns up at Lee and Lee blinks back, his brows twitching.

“Come on,” he says, then, standing up and leaving Gaara's legs strangely light. He could fly away at any second without Lee's gravity.

They go to Gaara's bedroom, change into their pyjamas, then Lee pulls Gaara into bed with him, pulls a blanket over and around them until they're pressed together in the dark.

“When did you sleep last?” he asks, stroking over the dark rings under Gaara's eyes with his thumb.

Gaara blinks at him, slowly, his head feeling heavy and light at the same time. Lee smells like laundry detergent and Gaara's kitchen. It's a scent Gaara hadn't realized he needed until it's already crept into his nose, until he's already addicted.

“This morning, for a few hours after Temari went to work,” he says.

Lee nods and keeps stroking Gaara's face with gentle fingers. “I thought so.”

Gaara turns his head into Lee's palm and kisses it. The room is dark, the only source of light a dim street lamp shining through a crack in the curtains, but Gaara thinks he can see how Lee's wide pupils follow his every move.

They kiss again, slowly, languidly, like they have all the time in the world.

 _Sunday, Sunday, Sunday_ , Gaara's mind whispers at him until he has to pull away, his heart stuck somewhere in his throat where he can feel its incessant beating pushing all his dreams and hopes and fears and nightmares into all the wrong directions.

“Do you think about me, when you write?” Lee asks out of the blue, his face so close Gaara can feel his breath on his lips.

Gaara thinks of black ink and words he cannot write down.

“Sometimes,” he says, truthfully, because truth comes easy in the dark.

He's always felt at home at night, with all the lights turned off and all the sounds muffled. Darkness does this to the world, to people, turns everything down low until he really has to focus to see and hear and understand anything.

It makes him zoom in on Lee and only Lee until he thinks he's able to hear his heartbeat in the grey-scale palette of his bedroom.

But maybe that's just him. Maybe that's just years of insomnia talking.

“So, am I gonna be in the new book?” Even Lee's smile seems muted, quiet. Instead of its usual blinding luminosity it reminds Gaara of the glow-in-the-dark stars Temari had glued onto her ceiling when they were kids.

“You'll see,” Gaara says and doesn't tell Lee about how his presence in Gaara's life is tangible on every page, how Gaara's stomach drops every time he compares the ink in his notebook to the colour of Lee's hair in his head, how his heart bleeds his feelings into this story more than anything he's ever written before.

He hopes Lee will pick up on it, will understand, he's shaking with excitement for the day he can give Lee his copy. At the same time, there's nothing he fears more.

“You'll read it, right?” he asks, still, just to be sure.

That's darkness speaking, too, laying bare all his insecurities.

Lee doesn't even hesitate: “Of course.”

“I was writing, when you arrived,” he finds himself saying. “That scene I told you about.”

“The stone heart turning to flesh,” Lee nods. His hands have drifted from Gaara's face to his shoulders, his arms, a pressure so real Gaara's almost sure he's dreaming it.

“It hurts, I think,” he says, and tugs at Lee's shirt, the fabric soft and warm and safe under his fingers. “Feeling so much all at once after not feeling anything for so long.”

Lee's eye shine wide in the dark, his lashes long shadows around them. “I bet it's also wonderful,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Gaara,” Lee says, and his lips move around Gaara's name like it's something to be treasured, a word held carefully in his mouth. “I'm very sure it's wonderful.”

They're not talking about the book anymore.

That's the thing about writing books, Gaara has realized in his time writing. Even when he's telling fantastical stories about magic and witches and ghosts and stone-cold hearts turning into warm, bleeding, feeling things, there's still some parts of himself in all of them.

“Larkspur's stone-cold heart,” Gaara says, carefully choosing every word. That's easier when he's writing it down, he's come to find, not for the first time wishing for the ability to be able to cross spoken sentences out of existence. Actually _talking_ leaves him painstakingly raw. “It turns to flesh because she's doing good deeds, so she can help Ghost find a way into the afterlife. But he'll leave, then, when she's most vulnerable. The first feeling she ever experiences is loss. That hurts the most, I think.”

Lee's eyes never leave his, intently listening, while his thumbs rub tiny circles into Gaara's arms. Every point of connection between them, from their hands to their eyes to Gaara's words, burns on his skin, leaving him hot and open.

“You keep saying that,” Lee says and his hands freeze on Gaara's arms. “That she's never felt anything before this, before Ghost, that it's the first time. I don't think that's true.”

Gaara can't help but smile a little, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards. “Is that so.”

“I mean,” Lee's eyes grow wide, “it's your story, of course, but… um…” He blinks. Gaara can see his blush spreading upwards out of the collar of his shirt and over his nose.

He wants to kiss it.

So he does.

“Go on,” he says, lips pressed against Lee's cheekbones.

Lee laughs, breathless but loud in the quiet of the night. It lights up the room more than sunlight ever could.

“I just, I think,” Lee starts again. “I think, she felt things before that. I think even stone hearts can feel. Because you told me about Larkspur's aunt, right? She must love her and be loved by her, from the sound of it. And—” He stops, then, considering, looking at Gaara with every feeling so painfully clear on his face. “She loves Ghost before he leaves. And she'll love him afterwards, too. Her feelings don't go with him.”

Gaara breathes. He has the inexplicable urge to crawl inside of Lee until he doesn't have to use words to explain himself anymore, until he can live there, make a home for himself there.

But, maybe, he already has.

“I understand,” he hums, pulling himself close again, burying his face against Lee's neck. “I understand.”

~*~

_She felt so incredibly warm, just looking at him. At him, truly, not at the stiff black-and-white boy in the photograph on the shelf, captured on yellowed paper and caught behind dusty, cracked glass. Even in his most luminescent form he was still more vibrant than she had ever dreamed to be._

_“I looked good, back then, didn't I?” Ghost turned to grin at her. “All handsome and alive?”_

_Larkspur opened her mouth but the words got stuck in her throat like she'd been hit with a curse._

_(From “The Witch Heart”, p. 295)_

~*~

In the morning, he wakes up with Lee curled around him like a second blanket. He's breathing into his ear and his body temperature is too high to really be comfortable but it's still the best morning Gaara's had in weeks. And that's not even taking into consideration that he's got a full six hours of sleep, which is more than he's got in the last two days combined.

For a few minutes — and getting dangerously close to the half hour mark — Gaara lets himself lie there and enjoy it. He turns in Lee's arms, careful not to disturb him but Lee's a heavy sleeper, especially on days he's not planning to go on ridiculously long morning runs or early gym sessions. At the moment, though, he's just asleep, every laughter line on his face smoothed over, every muscle still and relaxed.

Gaara feels more than sees Lee's chest rise and fall, and his heart seems to extend, to reach out. A string in his chest, tugging him forwards, onwards, towards this strange, lovely person in his bed, who traveled for hours to be with him, even if it's just for two days.

 _Sunday_ , it echoes in Gaara's head, just like it has the night before. The thought's been there ever since Lee had announced his time frame, Gaara can't help it. He lives in deadlines and schedules, always planning ahead, always keeping track of time.

He hates it.

Hates that Lee has to leave, hates that he can't _not_ think about it. It's a never-ending rotation in his head, a spinning wheel pulling him towards the finish line, even if he digs his heels into the ground.

Lee sighs and hums in his sleep, pushing his head against Gaara's shoulder. Gaara gets a mouthful of his hair but he can't bring himself to move away. He holds on tighter, instead, breathing in Lee's warm scent and trying to forget about Sunday.

 _“She loves Ghost before he leaves. And she'll love him afterwards, too. Her feelings don't go with him,”_ Lee had said and the words still ring in Gaara's ears.

He'd said he understood and he thinks he does, he still thinks he does, but it also doesn't chase away his fears of…

Yeah. Of what?

Abandonment? Loneliness?

Of Lee's back being the last thing he'll ever see of him?

There go the dark thoughts again.

Gaara huffs, finally managing to tear himself from the warmth of Lee's embrace and his bed.

It’s still dark outside when he gets to the kitchen. He just turns on the small lamp over the oven, warm light barely lighting all of the counter this way. It’s more quiet like this, for some reason, even when he gets the coffee machine to purr, and some bacon to sizzle in a pan, and a pop song's playing on the radio. Like this, the plans of the day aren’t on his mind as much, kept at bay by the dark edges of the night still lingering in his peripheral vision. Everything seems far away, every problem, every hurdle, everything.

Gaara likes early mornings.

He hears a key turn in the front door just as the toaster spits out two slices of bread.

That's another reason he likes mornings, catching Temari coming home from work just before she disappears into her room, even if it's just for a few minutes of small talk.

“I heard we have a visitor,” is how Temari greets him, before stealing a slice of toast right out off the toaster and planting herself at the kitchen table.

She looks dead tired, hair in disarray and eyelids drooping even as she bites into the dry bread.

“Good morning,” Gaara says, sternly, and gets a chuckle in reply. “How was your night?”

He can feel Temari’s eyes on him, considering him, tired as they are but she seems in the mood to indulge him and Gaara is grateful for it. He’s still on edge from waking up to Lee’s face so close to his, to his arm on his waist, to him in his bed. His warmth still lingers, like Lee's form has melted against Gaara's body, leaving an imprint on his skin.

“Quiet,” she says, yawning. “I don’t want to say ‘too quiet’ because that way madness lies, but it’s almost more tiring when nothing’s really happening.”

“Nothing?” Gaara takes the bacon of the pan, dividing it onto two plates and placing one in front of her.

Temari hums appreciatively, wolfing down two stripes before answering. “Not _nothing_. Some drunk kid wanted to climb out of a bathroom window at a party and got stuck, but that was fun, kind of. Nothing hurt but some 18-year-old's pride. Oh, and there was this woman with her arm stuck in a garbage disposal.” She shudders, then licks grease off her fingers with gusto, as if she hadn’t just mentioned an image Gaara won’t get out of his head for weeks.

He pulls a face at their own garbage disposal. “Eventful.”

“Yeah, okay, that last one was at least horrifying enough,” Temari admits, chewing on her toast while she’s talking. She grins that same wide grin as Kankuro, her eyebrows arching up. “But not as eventful as here, I gather.”

“What did Kankuro tell you?” Gaara sighs. He really doesn’t want to get into this yet but it’s not like he can flee. So, he busies his hands by making tea and more toast, not even sure if they’ll eat everything. Lee can eat a lot, sure, especially in the morning, but maybe that’s changed in the last months? Ordinarily, Lee likes eggs for breakfast, he knows this, but he’s out of eggs, he hadn’t planned for Lee to be here this weekend, otherwise…

They haven’t actually met in a long time, he realizes, his stomach plummeting with the thought. So much could’ve changed, what if…

“Not much,” Temari interrupts his thoughts. “Just that your boyfriend showed up, you didn’t invite him in for ten minutes, and you watched a movie sitting so far apart on the couch you could've been that meme with the guys in the hot tub.”

“So. Everything, basically,” Gaara frowns.

When he turns to look at Temari, she grins at him, tired and with bits of bacon stuck between her teeth. But happy. Bright. All of the people in Gaara's life seem to store all of their light in their smiles. He has the absurd thought of putting them all on a rope and hanging them up like fairy lights, glittering in the dark of his house, welcoming him home.

“I have pictures!” she says, gleefully enough for Gaara to not really care that he feels heat crawl up his neck.

“Why,” he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

“Because I need some cute anecdotes to tell at your wedding.”

His heart skips one or two beats, knocking into his lungs with force on the third. “My what.”

Temari laughs, standing up and walking towards him. When she presses her lips to Gaara’s forehead, she smells like grease and bread and the sweat of a long night spent at a fire station between other equally sweaty people.

There’s gravity in her touch on his arm, in the way she pulls his hand away from his face, in the way she pulls him away from his own jumbled thoughts. Temari has always been like that, easy to follow in a way Kankuro rarely is, bright and steadfast like a lighthouse in a storm.

“He seems like a good one,” she says quietly against his skin.

“You haven't even met him yet.”

“So? He came here because he missed you. And he looks at you like you've hung the moon. It's disgustingly cute.” With that, she holds up her phone. The picture's obviously taken from Kankuro's position on the floor last night, and it's just a bit blurry but. But. They're sitting ridiculously far apart, yes, and Gaara seems to be looking at the TV in front of him but Lee, Lee is looking at _Gaara_. Not even the quality of the picture or the bad mix of light from the TV and their living room lamps can distort the look of pure _adoration_ in Lee's eyes.

Suddenly, Gaara feels hot all over.

“Oh,” he croaks, his voice a gravelly sound at the back of his throat.

“Yeah,” Temari says. When she puts her phone away, Gaara has too press back the urge to reach out and grab it. “Let’s have dinner tonight, okay? You can introduce us properly, then.”

Gaara can only nod and watch as she steals another strip of bacon from his plate on the counter and almost skips towards her bedroom.

~*~

_“I wish,” Jacob said, and his sigh blew threw her like a breath of fresh air._

_Everything he could say now would be terribly heart-breaking. Larkspur couldn't wait to hear it._

_“I wish I had met you before,” he whispered. “You're the best friend I've ever had.”_

_“I'm your only friend,” Larkspur whispered back. She felt tears sting in her eyes, sharp and hot. And with them, she felt all the things she hadn't said before, burning her from the inside and only knowing one way: out._

_(From “The Witch Heart”, p. 333)_

~*~

After having found two almost empty boxes of cereal Kankuro and Temari haven't decimated yet, he takes everything up to his room, his heart dancing in his chest. Seeing Lee still asleep is as strange as it's exciting.

Ordinarily, Lee'd have been awake an hour ago, going through his early morning routine with a bleary smile on his face, doing push-ups on the floor beside his bed or pull-ups at the bar installed in his door frame. Gaara knows he's had to dial back on the training quite a bit after his injury but it's one thing to hear about it and quite another to see Lee sleep in.

The excitement part is mainly due to Gaara being the one to make breakfast. Even preparing it he hadn't realized that always being the visitor, a guest in Lee's home, he'd never brought Lee breakfast.

Something bubbles up in his chest and he has to pause at the door, tightening his grip around the tray he's holding, as he looks at Lee bundled up in Gaara's sheets, his hair a wild nest of black against the light blue pillows.

Maybe it's something in his gaze, maybe he makes a sound, but as Gaara's watching him, Lee stirs, his eyes slowly blinking open until he looks right back at Gaara.

And smiles.

“Hey,” Lee says, voice sleep-drunk and rough.

“Good morning,” Gaara says, and his voice is rough as well but he doesn't have the excuse of just having woken up. “I made breakfast.”

There's light in Lee's eyes as they follow Gaara's route towards the bed.

“Ah, it's a good morning indeed,” he hums and Gaara feels like a sense of accomplishment building up he isn't used to this early in the morning.

“Hold this,” he says, handing Lee the tray before crawling back into the bed and under the covers. He presses his cold feet against Lee's calved and chuckles when Lee flinches back.

“Hey, I'm holding hot beverages here, if I'm not mistaken.”

“You're not, I made them. Better not spill anything.”

He doesn't, gingerly placing the tray on the bed between them. He laughs at the cup showing dogs in firefighter gear and hums happily into his coffee.

Gaara realizes he hasn't needed to worry about anything concerning breakfast as Lee lavishly butters his toast and starts to tell Gaara about the dream he had. Something about trying to win a race against a turtle.

Gaara is listening but after drinking his coffee and eating some of the toast and bacon, he slides down into the pillows again, a tiredness comfortably settling over him as he's lying under warm covers with his legs tangled with Lee's, the coarse hair on Lee's legs tickling the soles of his feet.

He can’t stop looking at Lee, at the way he’s lying in bed beside him, at the line of his mouth around the rim of his coffee cup, the curve of his jaw in the clear morning air of Gaara's bedroom. There's a pillow crease on his cheek, making his face weirdly unfamiliar but _close_ at the same time. Like he’s sharing a side with Gaara he normally doesn’t show to anyone. Something inside of Gaara _uncoils_ at the sight, makes him settle into the bed, into the moment.

He feels at home.

“Do I have something on my face?” Lee looks up from his bowl of cereal and smiles down at him, just a touch unsure but still so bright Gaara feels his breath catch for a second.

“No,” he says, _rasps_ , really, heart in his throat, impossible words weighing on his tongue yet again. “Just… your face.”

Lee laughs. “Yeah, I have one of those,” he says. Then, he takes the breakfast tray and what's still left on it and cautiously places it on the floor beside the bed, before scurrying down until he’s eye-level with Gaara, until he can drag his blanket up to his chin.

They lie, for a while, and while Gaara is used to being looked at, it still feels different to be looked at like this, be looked at by Lee.

To be _seen_.

“I’m happy,” he says because while he’s not quite ready to say those other words, he can say this instead.

“Yeah?” Lee’s smile is soft like blankets, like summer sunlight. “Me too.”

“I’m happy you’re here.”

“I'm happy I'm here as well,” Lee says. His eyes shine.

“Temari said we’re disgustingly cute,” Gaara quotes her. He omits the rest of her observation, of Lee looking at Gaara like he's hung the moon. That's something he wants to savour for another time, when he can really appreciate Lee's full-body blush.

Now, Lee laughs, too loud in this small, quiet room, in this small, quiet moment. He presses his grin into his pillow, eyes never leaving Gaara. “They care a lot about you.”

“I care about them, too. I care about you.” Again, not saying the big things but edging closer and closer.

Lee must think so, too, considering the colour rising on his cheeks, considering the way is eyes shine like they’re wet, like he’s holding back tears.

“Is everything alright?” Gaara asks. He lifts one hand to Lee’s on the mattress between them, strokes over rough calluses and tiny scars with his thumb.

“Splendid,” Lee proclaims as a tear rolls down his cheek. He doesn’t bother brushing it away, opting instead to take his other hand — the one not held by Gaara — to Gaara’s neck, settling there like a reassuring anchor. Gaara isn’t sure who the anchor is for, though.

“I just—,” Lee starts, his breath hitching in his chest, even as he’s smiling. “I don't want to go tomorrow.”

That’s the thing, with Lee. The thing Gaara has always admired: That he can say the big, important things, just like that, without stressing over them, without having mental breakdowns, without overthinking. He just says words like these and of course they’re important. Of course they make his breath hitch and his heart race and his smile waver. But that’s never a reason for Lee not to say them. Quite the opposite.

“I know I have to,” Lee continues, “I have to work, you have to work, and we both have our families but—” And he cuts himself off, biting his lip and then breathing in through his nose like he's steeling himself for something. “But I really, really missed you and I really, really want to stay because I lo—”

So, maybe Gaara’s a coward, sometimes. Maybe he’s just not ready. Maybe he wants to be the one to say it first. Maybe he just wants to taste the word in Lee’s mouth as it’s spoken, so he bridges those few inches between them and presses his mouth to Lee’s in hope of expressing everything he’s feeling with a kiss. With this kiss, and the one after, and hopefully with a thousand kisses after that.

 _I love you_ , he says with his lips and teeth and tongue. _Stay._ With his smile and his touches. _Be with me forever._ With promises of more evenings spent in bed like this, but also mornings filled with Temari telling gross stories after work, or movie nights listening to Kankuro snore on the floor.

And even with phone calls and texts and awkward video calls, when Lee has left again. Because even if it hurts to see him go, Gaara knows he’ll never turn his back on him. He’ll always come back. Like a salmon to the sea. Like a wish spoken into a starry night.

Like a spell cast from a warm, beating heart.

~*~

_Larkspur had trained to be a witch her entire life. Witchcraft is not a talent, you see, it's something to be studied and practiced until every spell rolls off of your tongue. As it turned out, being haunted taught her a lot about her powers. And having a soft, warm heart, easily squishable, had taught her everything else._

_(From “The Witch Heart”, p. 349)_

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @mondfahrt


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